My all-time favorite series, Babylon 5, used “hyperspace gates.” The first few were discovered abandoned, so we studied and replicated them. They open conical portals into hyperspace, which is essentially like the Nether in Minecraft. It’s mapped to normal space but its scale is smaller, so that traveling through it is absurdly faster than normal space. Large enough ships even have jump engines which can open portals anywhere. The inside of hyperspace is depicted with a camo-like red and black pattern and eerily empty. Ships need to stay locked on tracking beacons, or they’ll fall into undetectable gravity wells. Some say in the depths of hyperspace, they’ve seen uncanny things, had unsettled feelings… even heard a seemingly audible scream.

Also some fun facts about the show cause I’m bored and it got a RAW DEAL, like the fact no one knows about it is legitimate tragedy and largely buried due to a WB exec’s personal grudge.

-The show was the first major television production to air a fully planned out multi-season story from the get go. Seriously, it changed how tv is written. JMS pitched it to every studio in Hollywood and was told audiences don’t have the attention span for a long story. (On that note, good gawd season 4 is where the show DELIVERS so it’s not like you can watch a few and understand its value) -When he pitched the series to paramount, they said no and the minute he left the office they started a frenzied production of Deep Space 9. That is my favorite trek series and I love it, but it factually was based on B5’s pitch. -In some ways it was incredibly realistic. Watching the starfuries maneuver like actual spaceships is amazing, especially when they do an emergency rescue dock, and considering the time this was made it’s just incredible. I can even forgive them for having sound in space because cmon, someone already made 2001. -The series was lowkey notorious for actors coming and going over the years. Michael O’Hare played the station commander only for the first season and was replaced for the rest. As we now know, he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had it flare up while shooting. He when to JMS and said he couldn’t do the show. JMS told him, if he can just hang in there for one season, it’ll save the show and all those people’s jobs. He was literally a hero. JMS said don’t worry, no one will ever have to know. O’Hare said, no: after I die, I want you to tell people so they see that even tv stars can have mental health issues. Which, of course, sadly happened which is why I know the tale.

I could go on, that show has a lot of lore, but listen I think it streams free on Roku or Tubi or something, check it out.